Rumor: Facebook is working on its own voice assistant

Facebook is busy developing its own voice assistant, according to a new rumor. It’s unknown how the social network plans to use the technology, but it’s likely to work on Facebook’s video calling device Portal anyway.

The voice assistant could also come in handy on VR headsets from Oculus, CNBC reports based on information from two former employees. There are few details about the assistant, other than that the team developing it is based in Redmond, in the US state of Washington. That’s not at Facebook’s headquarters in Silicon Valley.

Facebook has been in touch with smart speaker manufacturers about the upcoming assistant, among other things. It is unknown how the software should work, what it should be able to do and when it will be released.

The social network already had M, a human assistant in Facebook Messenger. That did not get off the ground and stopped last year. Facebook is the last of the big tech giants without a voice assistant. Apple has Siri, Google has Assistant, Amazon has Alexa, and Microsoft has Cortana.

Facebook Portal